The Adani Group has faced criticism over accusations of fraud and stock manipulation, and now it has received another blow from the US markets. The main company of the group, Adani Enterprises, will no longer be part of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices starting from February 7th.
The decision to remove Adani Enterprises from the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices was made “after a media and stakeholder review”, according to a statement from S&P Dow Jones Indices, the provider of well-known financial market indicators.
S&P Dow Jones Indices stated that Adani Enterprises (XBOM: 512599) will be taken off the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices due to the results of a media and stakeholder analysis prompted by claims of stock manipulation and accounting fraud.
S&P Dow Jones Indices is a division of S&P Global and is considered the leading source of index-related concepts, data, and research globally. It is known for hosting prominent financial markets indicators such as the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
On January 24, Hindenburg Research, a New York-based short-seller, accused the Adani Group of engaging in money laundering and fraud through the use of offshore shell companies. The Adani Group denied these allegations and stated that they were timed to disrupt its Rs 20,000 crore follow-on public offering (FPO). In response, Gautam Adani, the Chairman of the Adani Group, released a video statement on February 2nd in which he announced that he was canceling the fully-subscribed FPO and returning the money to investors.
The Hindenburg report caused alarm among investors, resulting in a loss of $108 billion in market value for the Adani Group since the report’s release.
To mitigate the impact of the Adani Group‘s decline, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) declared that it would place three Adani Group stocks (Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, and Ambuja Cements) on its ASM (Additional Surveillance Measure) list.
